When lunch was over and they went up to the drawing-room she left the elders together and sat for a while apart with him. “You’ll go and see Lady Northby, of course,” she said. “I should just think so,” he replied boyishly. “You see, I’m New Army and have never had a chance of meeting a General’s wife. If they’re all like that, no wonder the Army’s what it is.” Lady Edna smiled indulgently. “She’s a dear. I thought you would fall in love with her.” “But you couldn’t have known I was in General Northby’s Division, unless——” “Unless what?” “Unless you’re a witch.” With a quick glance she read the tribute in his young eyes. It almost persuaded her that she possessed uncanny powers. She looked charmingly mysterious. “Let us leave it at that,” she said. “Anyhow,” she added, “Lady Northby can be very useful indeed to a young officer.” “Useful?” His cheek flushed. “But I couldn’t go to see any lady—socially—with the idea of getting things out of her. It would be awful.” “Why?” He met her eyes. “It’s obvious.” She broke into pleasant laughter. “I’m so glad you said that. If you hadn’t, I should have been dreadfully disappointed.” “But how could you have thought me capable of such a thing?” His real concern touched her. Inured to her world of intrigue which had little in it that was so sensitive on the point of honour, she had taken for granted his appreciation of Lady Northby’s potential influence. She was too crafty a diplomatist, however, to let him guess her surprise; still less suspect her little pang of realization that his standards might be just a little higher than her own; or her lightning glance back to her girlhood when her standards were just the same. She gave him smilingly to understand that it was a playful trap she had set for him, so that resentment at an implied accusation was instantaneously submerged beneath a wave of wonder at the gracious beauty of her soul. This boy of twenty, instinctive soldier, half-conscious thereof when he came to exercise his power, could play on fifty rough and violent men as on an instrument, and make them do his bidding lovingly in the ease of camp and follow him in battle into the jaws of hell, as they had done, but he was outclassed in his unwitting struggle with the girl of five-and-twenty, instinctive schemer after power, her clear brain as yet undisturbed by any clamourings of the heart.